Earth Magic (10 page)
Authors: Alexei Panshin,Cory Panshin
Tags: #Fiction, #Fantasy, #Epic, #Science Fiction, #General
The grandmother in the corner came suddenly erect in her small chair, as though she had been given leave to begin now that his eyes were open. The movement disturbed the sleeping cat in her lap and it stood tall on tiptoes and stretched itself in an abrupt and unlikely manner, front legs, back legs, before settling down again in a new and more comfortable position as though it had not moved at all.
But he remembered.
“What’s the matter, child?” the old woman asked. “Did the world end while I was asleep and I nodding through it all?”
The little girl turned her way, never ceasing her sobs nor her stirring.
“There’s a foreign man telling stories in the yard and everybody gets to hear but me. Mother says I have to stir the pot, and it isn’t fair. I always miss out. I’m always left to stir the pot while everyone else goes off.”
“Ah, it isn’t fair,” the old lady said. “They don’t know what they are missing. I can tell better stories than any foreign man. I know the best and truest stories in the world. And they . . . oh, what do they know? Mind the kettle, Magga, and I will tell you a story.”
She was a very plausible implausibility. She was like the Nestorian nurses he had had when he was small. When he was tiny. Like one—the salty one who said strange things. Not the other, the stupid one they had sent away. The one they kept, they who controlled the dream.
What was he trying to remember?
Rebirth.
The girl said, “But you don’t know stories about the strange beasts of the sea.”
Haldane had an image in his mind of a sea beast, black and warmly sleek, being born,
pl-l-l-op
, into the sea.
“Hush, now,” the old woman said. “Are you as old as I to know what I know? Are you as wise as the strange black eye-whisker of Tiddly Thomas, my old cat? I know every story there ever was, I know it better, and what is more, I knew its mother before it was born. You don’t need to listen to a cock-eyed sailing man when you can listen to me. Now which is it—his story from my mouth, told better than he could ever tell it, or a new story that no one else has heard from the day the world was hatched until now?”
The little girl gave off crying, but not stirring, though the stirring was an effort. She said, “As good as the story of the bad brother and the good brother and the wonderful bird?”
“Ah, that. Better. A story with a meaning like the nut hid in a walnut fruit. Stir. Stir. And we’ll find the nut together and crack it.”
The little girl stirred on. “Cob says a story is only a story,” the little girl said. “Cob says that stories don’t mean anything.”
“Are you trying to stir me, girl, or the pot?” said her old grandmother. “Every story has some meaning, even one about strange beasts of the sea. Stories mean more than their tellers know. There was a time I knew no better than you or Cob, but I’ve learned enough now not to stub my toe on a dark night. Any fool can tell you a story, but it is a rare fool who knows what his story means. I’ll tell you the story of the Prince Jehannes and the Goddess. If you’ll stir. If you’ll stir. The stirring makes the making.”
“I’m not ready,” the poor little girl said. But she never ceased to stir. “I’m not ready! I’m afraid. I’ve never stirred so long. I’ve never stirred so long. I can’t stir much longer.”
“You can do it,” the grandmother said. “You can stir until the story is made.”
The little girl screamed then, but she continued to stir. Round and round the pot she swept the spoon.
Haldane pulled himself out. He had almost let himself believe that the world was as he was finding it. But he did know better. The old lady had been asleep. How could she know of the cock-eyed sailor? Wood! Cob had been told to bring wood and he had not come. The peasant woman had gone out to milk the goat, but she had not come back. If this were real, she would have to come back with milk to believe.
It was the mention of the Goddess that had told him—reminded him. That was where things had gone awry. He was asleep in his bed the night before Morca’s return, if only he could find his way back there again. That was where the world had changed. That was where the nightmare had started, there in the woods with the witch Jael.
Oh, they thought they could fool him. They thought they could make him forget, but he was stubborn and he would remember no matter what they did. He would. They should not have talked of the Goddess in front of him. He had caught them unawares again.
He tried to shut the distraction away as he had tried before, now that he knew more than he had before. But again he failed. Always when he had shut it all away, there was one last likely sound that drew him back into the nightmare. One something. One last likely . . .
There was a sudden intrusion on his foot, as though someone had stepped on it very loudly and followed it with a splash of sudden warm wetness along his leg.
Was he born again? He opened his eyes to see and they had him again.
The peasant woman said, “Oh, I didn’t see you there.” She set her pail of milk down. “Magga, leave off that stirring and light a tallow dip.”
Magga said, “You left me there to stir so
lo-ong
. You were coming right back.”
“Ha!” said the peasant woman. “I got to listening to the sailor man’s story and I forgot myself.”
Behind the woman, crowding into the house out of the night as though to impress Haldane with the troop, were Sailor Noll and all the other phantasms of Haldane’s dream. The woodcutter. Cob and his wife and baby. Four children, one after the other, the two little boys at the tail shoving at each other.
Haldane stole a quick look at the old gammer in the corner. She was fast asleep, her mouth hanging wide, as though she had never been awake. But where was the cat? He had misplaced the cat.
He looked around wildly for it, and there it was at his elbow. It was larger than he had thought and orange. And over its left eye was a black whisker, a single whisker standing amidst the lighter whiskers.
The cat pressed its head against Haldane’s shoulder and shoved. Then it looked up at him with all-knowing eyes and said,
“Mrr-ee-ow?”
Chapter 11
H
ALDANE WAS PLACED AT THE END OF THE TABLE
by Oliver’s left elbow when they sat down to eat. He did not resist. The little girl Magga was seated opposite him. He stared straight ahead at her without seeing her clearly while the peasant woman filled bowls from her well-stirred kettle all round the table.
Then the woodcutter blessed the food in the name of Silvan. Noll added words in the name of Porton, the sailor’s god.
Magga said, “And Libera.” And was overheard.
“What was that?” her father asked. “What did you say?”
“I said, ‘And Libera too,’ ” she answered in a small voice.
The woodcutter looked from his small daughter to her grandmother asleep unaware in her small chair in the corner. “Has that old woman been filling your head with the Goddess again? It is bad enough to see a wurox running in the woods without having the names of dangerous gods used in my house. I want none of it. We live by Silvan here.” He turned to his wife and said, “I thought I told you there was to be no more of that?”
“What have I to do with it?” said the peasant woman. “Don’t tell me. Tell my mother, if you dare.”
“How can I? She is always asleep when I try, and she will not hear me. You women are in this together. All of you.”
“Not I,” said his son’s wife, seated at his right. “I know nothing of Libera.”
“That’s true,” said the woodcutter, ruffling her hair. “You are a good girl.”
He seemed ready to round on his daughter again when Sailor Noll said, “What matter? Thrice-blessed food tastes best.”
“What was that?”
“It is a saying we have in Pellardy.” Noll coughed, shaking his head with the effort, then dipped his spoon deep. “And this tastes good. The best we have had since we left home port.”
The moment was saved and all turned to dipping their spoons and sopping their bread before the food grew cold. The woodcutter and his son took turn about in plying Sailor Noll with questions. Between coughing and spoons of food, he answered them all with patient invention.
Haldane did not listen to what they asked, even when a question was addressed to him. They were noughts, these peasants that had been placed here in the woods for him to meet and be further confused by. They were empty phantasms. If he could not shut them out of his mind to end the dream when he wanted it to end, he would ignore them.
He dipped his own spoon in his own small bowl. He did not know what the dream-food was. There were vegetables and little light bits of twisted meat in a gravy broth. Though he did not know what it was he ate it. This was his compromise with the dream.
Noll apologized for Haldane’s silence. “Do not expect much of poor Giles. I do his thinking for him. He is a poor simple dumbstruck boy. Do you mark his stony stare? My grandson was fetched a great clout by a swinging boom when he was small and it knocked all the sense out of him.”
Haldane continued to eat as Noll spoke, making no sign that he understood the words. This was not cleverness. It was continued disbelief. He was caught in this evil dream and the dream continued. He wanted desperately to find his way safe home again, and did not know how to do it. Well, he could wait. He would wait if he must.
Cob stared at him across the table. “I see it,” he said. “His eye is fixed. It’s very like that staring agate the man once showed us at market.”
“Very like,” his father agreed.
“But what is a boom?” Cob asked.
Haldane listened to Noll’s voice as he answered, letting his words slip away. He cared nothing for the words. He wished to know if Noll was a nothing like these peasants, one more shade used by the unknown dream master to fool and fuddle him, or was he a more active tool, able to choose for himself what he said and did? Haldane could not tell.
And the dream gave him no quarter. While Noll spoke, there came a knock on the door, a signal. There was a triple rap followed by a double tap. Noll fell silent. The knock was repeated.
In the silence Cob said, “It’s Uncle Jed. It must be.” He leaped up to take down the bar that was fixed across the door of the hut to keep strangers out. Outside the dog was barking.
“But what would Jed be doing here?” asked the woodcutter. He pointed at the woman. “If he’s in trouble, it’s you and your mother who must see to the mending of it. I’ll have no more of it.”
“Is that the thanks he gets for the food he brings you?” the woman asked.
Out of the night came a great large peasant man, red as an apple and excited as a jaybird. His breathing was labored. Cob kicked the dog in the nose with one foot and barred the door again behind his uncle.
“Sit here. Sit here,” said the woodcutter, waving to his son’s seat. “What is the excitement? Why are you so far from home this night?”
The peasant man motioned him silent. He cleared a space in the air with his hands. He took a deep breath and swallowed hard.
There was something familiar about him, but Haldane could not say what it was. He must have seen him about the village when he was awake. The dream was economical to bring him to these distant woods.
“It is great news! The world is turned upside down. Black Morca is dead! They say the Gets are at war amongst themselves. They have killed Morca and stuck his head on a pole over the gate of his own dun.”
“Why would the Gets kill their own king? How would you know of it?” asked the woodcutter. “When did you ever see Morca’s dun?”
“Never. But why wouldn’t I know? They say the pole is there to be seen by anyone who passes. The news is all through the village. And the Gets are out in troops around the country seeking Morca’s son to do the same again for him.”
“ ‘They say.’ ‘They say,’ ” the woodcutter repeated, shaking his head. “How could Black Morca be dead? Who is there that could kill him? You’ve been drinking bad brew again.”
“You won’t believe him because Morca was your favorite,” said the peasant woman. “You liked him too well.”
The woodcutter shook his head.
“It’s true,” the peasant man said. “He’s dead. I know it’s true. Four Gets stopped me as I was coming here and asked me if I had seen the boy Haldane.” He had his breath back now and he played the teller. “I thought on it long and then I told them that I had.” The peasant assumed a vacant slack-jawed look for a moment. He nodded his head earnestly, and then he laughed. “They were happy until I told them that it was a week past.”
Haldane knew him then. This was the great lout who had been fishing in the mud at New Bridge, the one who had asked after the fallen bridge just as Haldane had asked Aella this very day. And in the same manner. Haldane’s heart tumbled as he realized that he had been made fool of.
The peasant woman shook her head “You’ll buy yourself more trouble than you have any use for if you go on playing games with Gets, Jed. You always were a silly boy. They will kill you someday.”
But she picked up an empty wooden bowl from the sideboard and began to fill it for him from the kettle hanging over the coals of the banked fire.
Poor Haldane. He hated these peasants for what they said and he hated the dream for stupidly continuing when it had already squeezed him dry. Enough! Enough! He had learned all the nightmare could teach him, hadn’t he? And yet it went on. Why couldn’t it stop? He had not been able to force it out of his head. He had not been able to ignore it by sitting numbly. He felt called upon to act, urged to act, compelled to act.
Noll said, “Yea, I think what he says must be true. We were stopped by three Gets on the road today and they asked after this Haldane and others. And they showed their teeth when they did.”
“Gets are always showing their teeth,” said the peasant woman.
“Who is this stranger?” asked Jed.
“It is a sailing man with great stories to tell and his idiot grandson. They are staying with us this night,” said the woodcutter. “If Morca is truly dead, what are we to do?”
“Keep the door barred until there is a new king,” said his wife.
“Not I,” said Jed. “This is the time to act while the Gets are all at odds. I’m off to carry the word to Duke Girard. We will throw the Gets out of Bary now and make life as it used to be.”
“Me too,” said Cob. “I will go with you. I want to be an outlaw too.”
Haldane’s head was wild. He stood slowly. No one paid him heed but Noll, who put a restraining hand on his arm. Haldane shook it off. He looked from one peasant to another. He was suddenly aware of something looming over his head and he ducked away before he saw that it was only cheeses hanging from the rafters.
“You shan’t go,” said Cob’s young wife.
“Wake your mother, Jed, and ask her,” said the woodcutter. “She is old and strange, but she has seen much and I trust her advice.”
Jed crossed the room and went to his knee in front of his mother’s chair. Before he could shake her, she came erect, spilling the cat from her lap, and fended him off.
“I’m awake,” she said. “I’m awake. Hear my word, Jed.” She spoke prophetically. “If you join Duke Girard, you will starve and die in the forest, fight and die in the forest, die in the forest. The time will come when the Goddess sends help to Nestor and all the West and a new and peaceful Golden Age will dawn. But this is not yet that day. That will be another spring. For now, go on home and keep the door barred until the Gets have chosen their new king.”
“See,” said Cob’s young wife.
Jed rose, shaking his head. He pointed his finger at his mother. “
That
is why I sent you away.
That
is why I sent you away. You are always saying me no. Well, I won’t listen to you. I will join Duke Girard whatever you say.”
“Shh,” said his sister, the peasant woman. She held out the well-filled bowl. “Here, now. You must be hungry. Have some of the good clams that you brought to us.”
Clams?
Clams? Was that what the dream-food was?
It was all too much for Haldane. His stomach turned a somerset inside him.
He looked wildly round the room. He must do something. He must break his way out.
As Jed turned toward his sister, Haldane lunged between him and the steaming bowl of food. With a sweep of his hand, he knocked the bowl away, the food spilling, bowl flying. Then he swung around and with his fist he struck Jed square in the nose.
There!
There indeed! But the nightmare continued. The peasants unbarred the door and hustled Sailor Noll and his idiot grandson out into the darkness. And they threw their bag after them. The door slammed.
